It's mother's day, but I've already written about my blood mother, so this can be about my first stepmother.

I'm sure I could count the number of stepmothers I've had if I really think about it, but I always just say I'm on my fourth. Daddy has met every one of them but ann in AA. He met Ann at a club (disco? dance?) when I was about fourth grade?

She was rich. Her name was Ann Martin before she met my father as her first husband, Jimmy, had been a martin (and a loser apparently).

I thought she was so cool. She smoked virginia slim menthol 100's (and didn't like it when i would lovingly hide them from her for her own good). She was a harsh arian (like the star sign) real estate agent that owned her own company. She was self-made and always drove mercedes (I think her latest beau was her genius car repairman - nick that I once met). She owned an excaliber. She had tons of cats with great names. Even though I was then allergic to cats, I loved them, and as long as I washed my hands and endured the asthma, it was OK. My favorite was Pee-Wee - a large bitchy fat and old siamese who disliked everything. I also loved Miss Litter (mr. litter - her brother had passed on before my time). She also had Pumper (ann was the first one who coined the kneading - pumper love). She also had a poodle named muffin. My father hated this poodle.

My sister had gone to live with them (if you recall) after mother gave up on trying to cure her bullemia and integrate her into the new stepfather regime.

I would visit in the summers. I really took a shine to Ann. She had had her house built (with a sunken living room) on land she bought off the highway. She was the first house on the road and got to name it. She named it Whispering Hollow. I thought that was cool. This house had a pool. Ann has excellent taste. She was a snappy dresser and would always compliment me on how mature I was. She talked to me like a mini-adult and not like a child. I was novel to her. I would play on her typewriter at the office (I remember a cool cursive sign called The Henderson Company ((her maiden name)) and lots of yellow).

My father is a very talented artisan and contractor, and they would take fucked-up trashed homes in good areas of greenville, south carolina and transform them to cute and fab and then sell them. They bought a beach house together on Folly Beach. This started my lifelong love of charleston (and of course folly beach - where I have taken every significant beau).

Upon their divorce, I would still go visit ann. She was a bit needy, but fun. I liked her sad friend lynette (who was rich off folly beach inherited property but still was so lonely and aging that she dated trailer park salesmen and total losers who used her for her money. God I loved lynette's southern accent).

I only learned a bit later that Ann was obsessed with my father. I know that she had affection for me, but I began to suspect that she was using me as a way to show my father (who I didn't visit or contact) that SHE had me, and he didn't. I think Ann was a meglomaniac. She would stalk my father on 'business trips' to florida and tell me all about how dumpy his house was. She would ask me what I said about her in phonecalls - if I told him that she had bought me $200 worth of clothes and the like.

It was uncomfortable, but I needed Ann. She was a solace to me. She was someone I could go to separate of everyone. She showered attention on me and liked me more than my sister.

I loved Ann's sisters (three and no brothers. ann was the eldest) and her mother - who I called Gee (her name was peggy). One had no children and an awesomely decorated mountain house with her fab husband... red rooms, a spiral bedroom and nothing but foothills and wooded land and streams... Her beautiful sister, Jo, was remarried to a really rich dude in spartenburg. It was all glam. Ann was out to best her father who had left Gee in need and for a young trailer trash trophy wife.

Ann and I had a falling out. When I was depressed once, she sounded the alarm to my family, and I had to betray her by calling her a liar and putting a happy, happy face for my family (who probably wanted everything to be OK anyway). I was super depressed and quite close to utter despair, but I didn't want anyone to know but her.

The last time I saw ann, she had flown me out to hang with her. I was living in Wilmington and had just had kristen and kent dumping part III or IV. It was miserable. I stole a white skirt she had just bought (she had tons and tons of clothes and I thought she would never miss it). She did and called me a thief: "there was nothing she hated more than a lying thief". I had to maintain my honor, and though she told my mother and sister, I called her crazy and a liar - and it was no hard task to have them believe it (Ann was a bit nuts).

She would call me a bit after that to call me a liar and to just admit it. I was so over it. To me, it was the least of my problems, and whatever. I never picked up the phone. She stopped calling after a while. I never wore the white skirt again. It wasn't that flattering, and I felt like a fucking asshole every time I put it on.

I am thankful for ann. She was very important to me. I greatly enjoyed seeing her life. She was like a mother to me in many ways. I wish her a happy one. I hope she isn't as sad and bitter as she once was. I hope she is a smart-ass and successful and laughing at all the fools and saying F-you to all the men who hurt her.

I was alone all day yesterday, and it reminded me of wilmington when I would just wander around the house and watch teevee or go on yet another walk where nothing 'x factor' happened. I romanticize that stupid time now even though I made myself swear to myself I never would. I wonder if I would romanticize being a whore after it was over for a year or two?